Well this is embarrassing... there's a critical issue with the Maypril quest involving cutscenes and player positioning that makes it unplayable and that has taken me way too long to sort out. So things remain color-faded until further notice. Which shouldn't be too much longer. But you know what they say about the best-laid plans... mmm scrambled eggs! It'll end up being better than it would have been.

We're laying the groundwork for some great new features and continuing to plan ahead for a very exciting set of releases while we work on bugfixing. I am so excited about all of this coming together for you!

May the 4th E With You: Be sure to log in on May the 4th to get a cool new holiday rare E-blade. Classic "lightsaber" styled weapons to fit the holiday. There will be versions for NSC, SC, and NG. Clarion made a whole lot of them, and Ash is inspired to add more colors -

transmission incoming: it's Ash!

Greetings! Some of you mentioned that you weren't fans of the way the 4pri1 mech worked, so we took that into consideration for the Maypril mech. Blues and I talked about a few things and we came up with the following for this year.

In other news I did a few more revamps for Lagos. Robina's shops will have a bunch of higher level items for you guys. Hopefully that will tide you all over since I've done about all I can for right now. I'll revisit the planet in the future but I need to focus on some new stuff. Enjoy the F001 and I look forward to hearing what you guys think of it.

Greetings! As some of you know I've been messing around with new effects. Welp, I came up with one that is really powerful. It's not just powerful, it pretty much laughs at your opponent. Because of that I built it into a new mech and we're going to let you all have it for a limited time. Now it does have a low chance to activate instead of the normal effect, but when it happens it does some really cool stuff. Since I was given an assignment to create a powerful mech I decided to use the idea and convert the rest of the mech around it. Being all fancy and such I came up with an in-game reason for it.

The Nubertron mech is a basic mech many of you are familiar with. It's an alright mech to start off with but it was the perfect test bed for a new power core. This core is a prototype of my own design and is way more powerful then anything I would normally let pilot's take out and use. (Even if you have saved the universe a few times.) I usually wait till I've fixed the power spikes and damage jumps before releasing it, but in this case I just couldn't resist letting you all play around with my prototype.

My creation is called the "Ultra Broad-ranging Energy Recovery core" or "U.B.E.R. Core" for short. This core usually only gives you a fairly large boost to mech HP recovery, granting a random amount of health back to you. This prototype can instead, very rarely, interface with your opponent and actually steal its HP and EP while giving YOUR HP and EP to the opponent. It's very random and the effect could make things really bad if it triggers when the opponent has less health then you, but it could also be amazing if you're down to almost nothing and the enemy is near full.

Like I said, it's a prototype and a lot stronger then any other future versions I make will be, but it's a powerful piece of tech I know that you can use. The core has one other side effect. It's increased the damage and effects off all the other built in weapons. It won't boost the damage of non-built in weapons but it does grant a hefty bonus to the current ones.

That sounded like an NPC explaining something in game but it makes it sound cooler to hear it like that sometimes.

In other news, last week you'll remember that I tweaked some of the Lagos mechs and equipment. Some of you mentioned that those mechs didn't really seem to have a theme after that. They made convincing arguments and showed the pro's and con's of what each mech could have done so I went ahead and redid them along with a few other mechs. All these re-tweaks, along with the tweaks to the Navigator series, the Shadowed Arthurian Lion series, AND the basic Bunzilla's will come tonight after I've had some time to take care of a few more things. I'll be posting a list of all the changes and effects in the DN thread in the MQ General Discussion area of the forums as soon as I get done with it and they are live.

I know I also said I'd revamp some weapons. The problem is some of the weapons were supposed to go rare a while ago. That's why once you get to a certain part in the war you no longer have access to some shops. Right now I'm waiting to hear back about if they are alright to revamp and make a shop button for them in the Lagos War finale screen so you all can always access them, or if they are meant to be war rares that got lost in the shuffle. Once I know, I'll be able to proceed.

Enjoy the mechs and let me know what you think of the effect!

Thanks, Ash! And thanks to Blues for advising on power level for this innovative update! Then I'll just add a quick few bits of detail and news for you...

So the Ubertron model will be in the shop in Soluna City Main for a limited time: it will close on Wednesday, April 30th. And then don't forget... Maypril will be here!

Maypril f001: This model will be in the shop for a limited time - only until Monday, May the 5th. This one will be available for Nova Gems and will also have credits versions.

Happy birthday, Lyris! The Birthday Shop in Soluna City Main has been updated with a new E-Blade to honor Lyris on the occasion of the anniversary of her birth. Thank you for the art, Clarion! But that's not all the spring holiday news...

<bzzzincoming transmissionzzt> It's Ash!

Greetings! As you may have noticed if you follow me on Twitter or visit the forums (you should visit them!) I asked what planet you all wanted a revamp of. The answer was a resounding, "LAGOS!"* So, being the nice guy that I am, I went to work revamping some of the stuff from there.The planet has a bunch of stuff so I had to split the work up between adding stuff for the Easter re-release and getting the Earth Day items ready. Right now if you visit the Hideout you'll find some new levels of the mechs in the Anchorman and Wolf shops as well as more levels of items in the weapons shop. I haven't forgotten about the Build A Mech models or the Pirate weapons and all that good stuff. That will all come next week!**I'll be doing other planets and other places in the future as well so be on the lookout for my next poll of what people want!Enjoy these and the Easter Release! Have fun!

I give you ... ... ... ...LANCEBUNNY! ...

*I possibly lost hearing from the amount of yelling for Lagos.

** I don't revamp things early or late. I revamp them exactly when they should be done.

Wow Ash! Thanks!

Next Tuesday, the Earth Day shop will open in Soluna City, and the weapons will be available for the higher levels this year. Be sure to log in - and as an extra bonus we will extend the DOUBLE REWARDS while the Earth Day shop is open! It will stay open for nine days, closing on May First. May f- ... Maypril!

Maypril is coming! The f001 mecha really doesn't want you to use a body attack, so we've been in a long wrestling match with him. Ash & blues have worked out some specials to make this model worth the wait. Will it be ready on Maypril (May the 1st)? Or will we release it without the body attack and fix it later? Who will win? We are very dogged and determined, so you should not be disappointed, whatever happens. And wait - there's more... Part Two of the April Fool mission will finally open for you!

We're also working out the details of several projects that are still under wraps, so keep your ears to twitter and your eyes on the forums! Thanks so much for playing and have a wonderful weekend!

SC Special Effects:*Good Chance for a critical hit Damage Increasing Over Time!, Increases Boost by +12 per turn for 3 turns. +16 Bonus for every successful hit x 3 turns

NG Special Effects: *Good Chance for a critical hit Damage Increasing Over Time!, Increases Boost by ( was +10 every turn for 5 turns) +18 per turn for 3 turns. +18 bonus for every successful hit x 3 turns.

Enjoy the holiday! I left the Clover O.ops shop open because I read on the forums that at least a couple of people are still farming credits for it. So, have fun, enjoy the rest of the weekend, and, as the saying goes....

Go.Oogly! A Maypril RARE weapon is almost ready for you! I worked VERY late (it's was 5:30 AM in the Undisclosed Location when I started writing this note to you) - and, among other things, modified an old weapon with some new graphical assets and sounds to create a new theme for it. Still need to tweak the specials - everything is functioning so the coding shouldn't take me too long. Oh, and still need to decide the levels, come up w/descriptions & names, and make the database entries - sounds like a lot, but goes quickly. My plan is to give you a Cinco de Mayo Shop. Ideally I'll have it ready to open on Sunday, May 5th - should be doable! Watch this space and the homepage for updates!

Sneak Peek:

The Story Behind the Design: One of our players, known as #Kale on the forums, suggested that we make an O.ops version of one of the starting guns as a Maypril fool. I didn't want to just release a weapon that only players with 5,000,000 credits could get, so I decided to do something different with the o.O part of the theme.

o.O: Gibby recently linked me to a series of photos of googly eyes stuck onto store packaging, and that fed into the inspiration for the weapon. I remembered that we released a carrot weapon - a gun that shoots little carrot flechettes that stuck into the enemy & hung there before exploding. So I thought maybe I could figure out how to convert the existing animation. It was a little fiddly figuring out how it was done, but it's always fun when you get that "aha!" moment. Then I started recoloring and redecorating it. The really fun part was figuring out how to attach the sound effects! I think you'll find it amusing.

Maypril Mecha Delayed: I know that many of you are eager to get the traditional holiday super-RARE mecha and I do apologize for not having one ready for this Maypril. Everyone is working overtime on Finale assets and although we did talk about doing a mecha, the art and animation wasn't practical to schedule in, and had to be put on the back burner. I do still want to give you some kind of foolish, fun mecha this year, but I can't promise you a date.

Upcoming Installment of the Finale Quests - Rescue Jemini: We had hoped to have this ready by Friday - we still are in need of one background, but that gives Vivi more time to code the new enemy you'll be up against (and more time to test & balance). Blues also came up with specials for an SC Challenge version, so Vivi will code that after finishing the regular version. Korin has been building the quests in "bare bones" framework so I/we can add the art assets as they come in. J6 and Minar both made some BEAUTIFUL backgrounds for this mission. Ghost did the cutscenes, which are AMAZING. I really love the facial expressions in the first one - we can hardly wait for you to see them in game! He also has a wonderful new soundtrack, and I'll be making a stereo for those of you who are Star Captains to put in your Starships (along with a bunch of new Starship Items).

NPC Enemies: During some of the upcoming Finale missions, you'll be on foot battling more NEW enemies. I've been working on some new swordfighting monster AI - not a global revamp of the swordfighting engine, but a fresh approach to creating the enemy tactics. These individual enemies are getting unique attacks which should turn out to be fun, requiring a little strategy beyond just hitting Strong Attack (or Magic) with your strongest Energy Blade. I got the Casting animation to work in the monster file I was doing earlier this week, so there's a chance I/we can apply this to make other existing swordfighting enemies do some interesting things in the future as well.

I can't say too much about the NPC enemies because it's an ENORMOUS spoiler, but I can tell you that Alina sent me a WHOLE LOT of files this evening (er, I guess that's yesterday now) and one of them is an NPC I was eager to start working on! So I did get started on converting it to an MQ-style monster in the wee hours of the morning. I learned quite a lot about how the body parts are put together due to a sizing issue when attempting to replace an existing head with the new one. I'm looking forward to doing more with this! And the top-secret NPC whose casting animation now works is one who only had a front-facing view - Minar created a side view so that the battle wouldn't look weird.

Missions After This Next One: Plasma Charge made some backgrounds that will be in an upcoming mission, and he's working on art for a new mecha-battle enemy. He's in the midst of his Leaving Certificate so he's pretty swamped with school. Vivi, Practel, and Arklen are also quite busy at their schools, so I'll add more news about what they're up to when their schedules free up a bit!

Thank you for playing MechQuest! May the Fourth be with you (and I'll update with Cinco de Mayo news when I know